Goin' Bananas Premiere

Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 by Angel

Awesome turn out at the Premiere. Hey guys, save some popcorn for the rest of the people

After a few people tried to go over the bananas, all tricks had to be done over the whole ramp. First land for Lil' TK with an ollie to flat

Lehman steps it up with a front 180

The Weasel on a mean kickflip

Chris Knight with a switch front shove

Giles gets his daily serving of potassium before the show

The Weasel going bananas

Giles gaps over to crooks

Banana splits for everyone

Winners of the banana madness

This was one Video Premiere I have to admit I was not exactly looking forward to running simply because I happened to be fortunate enough to see it Premiere at this rugged hole-in-the-wall beach bar around the corner from Kyle Berard’s house a few weeks earlier in San Diego, during the overwhelming knock-down drag-out industry event known as ASR.

Last Friday night here at Skatepark of Tampa, with Barak and the rest of the crew out in L.A. to either get discovered as movie stars or check out the Vans Downtown Showdown, it was up to Angel and I to handle the Premiere. Since the video was called "Goin’ Bananas," I thought it would be cool to do some kind of Best Trick Contest that involved your pet monkey's favorite snack, so you guys could compete for the decks Consolidated was kind enough to send over. Got the green light from Clem last minute and as usual I was running behind schedule, so it’s a good thing Angel doesn’t drive as slow as I do. We arrived at about 6:45pm to see a barrage of heavy hitters skating the manny pads outside and an extra-intoxicated, extra-eccentric Danny Renaud making random purchases in the Shop.

I’m sorry to say that at video time (7pm) I was really disappointed to see that the Snack Bar was pretty empty and it seemed like the only reason those kids came in for a minute was to take advantage of some of our free popcorn. But it really hit rock bottom about half way through the video when myself and two other members of our staff (Snack Bar employee Austin Nelson and Shop employee Brandon Bristol) were the only three people watching it. I really got hit with a reality check again and was forced to see the current state of what our passion has become. I mean come on! I know it was the Consolidated Video. A video that epitomizes the term “low budget.” A video that has neither an Andrew Reynolds or a Ryan Sheckler type superstar. A video with more scratches on the lens than special effects. But isn’t that what a skateboarding video is supposed to be? Raw, uncut, good old-fashioned fun with your friends? Skating whatever you could find on the side of the road?

I thought so. So needless to say I was bummed on the turnout and saw real skateboarding as a thing of the past.

But then as I made my way out to the Street Course I realized why no one had stopped to watch the video. They were all still skating. So we set up the bananas. Then gorillas, pirates, bums, weasels, dead people, hecklers, and "nabers" slid all over the place having the time of their lives on the banana peel step-up. Prizes went to Alex "Dirt Weasel" Sandino for a full-speed kickflip over the ramp to flat and Chris Knight for a switch pop shove-it up it. Both were in need of new sticks, so it worked out well. Honorable Mentions go to Chris Lehman for the righteous power slides, Wes Dippold for the best ollies while eating a "naner," and Matt Giles for being a gorilla. Oh yeah! And I want to give a special thanks to Cory Goodsell for helping clean up. It’s good to see that there are still whole-hearted, hard-working kids out there who don’t expect anything but a high five in return. Keep up the hard work Cory! You are on the right track.

Oh yeah...as for the video, Mike Peterson and Kyle Berard killed it! If you want to know who else is in it you’ll just have to buy it. We were too busy skating.